Not Ghosts Anymore
by DeltaG
Summary: Shepherd tried to silence Ghost and Roach. He tried to have them burned after shooting them. Ghost and Roach survived, and now they're out to find Shepherd. As far as they know, Mactavish and Price have been betrayed too, and that's their first priority. Will they achieve their revenge or will Shepherd kill them for sure this time? Rated M for gore, violence, language.
1. Burning a Ghost isn't so easy

**A/N: This is a fanfic about what would happen if Roach and Ghost had somehow escaped being burned at the Estate. This will include other characters as well, some even made up to keep the story going. R&R if you please, but just enjoy the story.**

**A/N over.**

_The Estate_

_Ghost and Roach_

_Assumed K.I.A. By Cmdr. Shepherd. Bodies to be burned_

"Torch their bodies. No evidence left."

_Well, shit, _Gary thought, two men seizing him and dragging him away from the helicopter. The bullet in his left side was burning like hell, but he tried not to pass out.

Ghost was being dragged along with him to his right, looking unconscious. Gary hadn't seen where he'd been shot, but he assumed it was somewhere quite painful to knock him out.

They soon dropped him and Ghost, and started pouring gasoline and lighter fluid over them, making Ghost start sputtering, some landing in his mouth.

"Why can't we just leave 'em? Waste of fuel, it is..." An unknown voice wafted over to them as a man lit a match.

The man with the match turned back and replied, "Do you want to go against Shepherd?"

"Just saying, it seems like a waste." The other voice remarked again, this time sounding farther away.

"Just go with it. We'll be fucked if we're left here, so get on with it." The man with the match turned to drop it on Gary.

"No you don't, fucker." Ghost had somehow regained enough force to come up behind him with his knife and wrap his arm around his throat, threatening to either break the man's neck or cut off his oxygen.

"Drop him, or you'll die just as easy!" One of the other three men yelled, probably pointing a weapon at Ghost.

Gary tried to rise and felt nauseous. He was weak, and the bullet in his side wasn't helping.

"Stay down unless you want another bullet in you!" That made Gary stop trying to move and lie back, fighting against the urge to just fall unconscious and forget about this.

"Drop the guns, or your little buddy here gets it." That was Ghost, his arm tightening around the first man's throat, his face beginning to change colors as he gasped for air.

"How about you drop him, and maybe we won't have to put you through more pain."

"Wrong answer." In a flash, the man's sidearm was in his hands, and two bullets were off before their enemies could react.

One man reacted fast enough through, two bullets ripping into the armor and clothes of the man held by Ghost, hitting him in the stomach but not going all the way through.

Ghost let off another shot at the remaining man, and judging by a cry of pain, he was still alive.

"Roach, you still with me?" Ghost stopped to ask, motioning with the arm still wrapped around the man's face for him to get up.

"Yea... Drenched me in this foul shit, though." Gary replied, sitting up and slowly standing, his left hand held to where blood had stopped pouring from. The bullet appeared to have missed organs and important parts of his body, but it still hurt like hell to him.

"Roach, go help our friend there." Ghost motioned with the pistol still in his hands. He kept it trained on the man bending down and clutching his leg, where he was struggling to keep blood from pouring.

Roach stumbled over to him and seized the man by the front of his shirt, releasing his left hand from his wound in his side and wrapping it around his throat, threatening to suffocate him.

"Now, listen to me, and I may let you live. Where is Shepherd going?" Roach asked, easing up enough to let him breathe.

"Burn..." The man replied, smiling.

"Funny is it? Is this?" Roach asked casually, before thrusting his right hand into the man's face, curled into a fist. It impacted on his nose, scrunching it up against his face and causing blood to pour out from it, going down towards the sides of his mouth.

"Is that funny? If it's so funny, want some more?" Roach punched him again, this time in his left eye, making him flinch, his eye staying shut as Roach drew back for another punch, this one intending on breaking his jaw.

"Stop... please..." The man muttered, trying to reach up and stop his nose from bleeding.

"Where is Shepherd going?"

"I don't... know."

"WHAT! And you made me punch you in the face because of that? What kind of sick bastard are you!" Roach yelled, tightening his grip on the man slightly, making him start gasping.

"Give Commander... time to... get away. Throw off... bitches like... you." The man then smile done more time.

Out of rage, Roach punched the man in the jaw, a sickening crunch following as the man tried to speak but gibberish came out, before he began screaming in pain.

Roach dropped the man and kicked his stomach, making him fall to the ground. The man lay there gasping for breath as Ghost walked over to Roach and examined the man.

"You're not kidding, this gasoline does smell like horrible, Roach..." Ghost leaned down and examined the man's equipment as he attempted to speak again.

Ghost ignored him, and simply pulled a radio off of the man's chest, and tuned it in to a different frequency, getting static.

"Damn. That's what the frequency was supposed to be. Shepherd's set up a private one, and now we're stranded here..." He began tuning the radio again, only getting static and on one occasion chatter in an unknown language.

"Ghost, can I kill this asshole already?" Roach unsheathed his knife and bent down next to the man who was still sputtering nonsense.

"Go ahead, we don't need him anymore." Ghost replied, still trying to tune the radio into an active frequency.

The man's eyes widened as Roach slit his throat and stuck the blade in the ground to clean it.

_He should be thankful, I know much worse ways to kill with a knife that that, _Roach thought, watching the man clutch his throat as it bled onto his vest.

He could have slowly cut the man's eyes out for one, and then stabbed him in the heart or throat. He could have cut off the organ most men call their best and watched him bleed to death, but he had been merciful, regardless of his and Ghost's situation.

"...Gamma 2-1 confirm!" That came from the radio, causing Roach to jump. He had suspected Ghost would give up and attempt to contact their colleagues, but he didn't.

"Package is clear, repeat, package is clear. Gamma 2-1 confirm K.I.A. Of targets!" That was directed to the dead man in front of them.

"Bravo 2-2, Oscar Mike to Gamma 2-1's location. ETA is three minutes." That made Ghost make a move. He pocketed the radio and tapped the headset that was his, and spoke into it.

"Archer, respond." Ghost spoke, asking for the man who, in a ghillie suit, had covered them on their approach to the estate earlier, before Shepherd had attempted to kill them and burn their bodies.

"Ghost, you're alive? Shit, we thought you'd been K.I.A." The voice floated into Roach's headset too. "Is Roach still alive as well?"

"Loud and clear, Archer." Roach said.

"Toad, get your ass down! Ghost, callsigns are over, it's every man for themselves. We are fucked if Shepherd's clean up team finds us." Archer spoke again.

"Archer, can you get the evac team on?" Ghost inquired.

"They've gone dark. We've also intercepted intel that a Gamma 2-1 is not responding. I'm guessing that's your doing?"

"Got that right. Bastards tried to burn us after Shepherd shot us. They're sending a search team, so we've got to move." Ghost stood up and began moving slowly towards the cover of the trees nearby.

"They tried to burn you? Shepherd really has betrayed us. If you can, meat us at the secondary exfil point. Our ETA is five minutes if we meet no resistance." Archer went silent after that, probably turning off his mic.

"Roach, take his pistol." Ghost suggested.

The man's pistol was a usp .45. Roach would have preferred to take the man's ACR, but Ghost knew they needed to move fast or get caught by Bravo 2-2.

Ghost and Roach made their way through the trees slowly, making sure not to make any unnecessary noise. The consequences would be greater than they could bear if they were found.

"Roach, halt." Ghost spoke urgently. They had gotten close to the secondary exfil, where hopefully Archer and his fellows were.

"Check the right side of the clearing, see the glare?" Ghost was right, there was a glare coming from a bush at the other side of the clearing, noticeable only to the men who were looking for the slightest detail.

"Archer, we're near the exfil. Have you set up a perimeter yet?" Ghost asked into his mic.

"You've seen the snipers too, then? We're on the south side, it appears like they've got men at each direction. You see the glares from them?" Archer replied, sounds of quick breathing in the background.

"We're on the east side, staring right at this guy who hasn't seen us yet. We're going to try and find the guy on our end." Ghost answered moving to the left, while Roach moved to the right.

"Ghost, I've found one of the fuckers." Roach spoke into his own mic. Directly in front of him, the man's back to him, was a man with an Intervention sniper rifle, looking down the scope to the West.

"Take his ass out, Roach." Ghost replied.

Roach unsheathed his knife again, this time putting his arm around the man's throat and dragging him away from the rifle, which stayed perched on the bush he'd left it on.

He dragged the man back and quickly slit his throat, dropping him to the ground as he tried to speak but couldn't, his airway cut open.

Roach took the man's place, looking through the scope across the clearing. He searched for a few seconds and found the glint of the other sniper rifle, the man's head just visible above it.

"Archer, east side secure. Sitrep on the south?" Roach asked.

"Clear, on my count we take out the other two. Toad, get ready to take out the North one." Archer answered back.

"One... Two... Three.. Fire." Archer didn't bother yelling the last word, it just gave yourself away to the enemy.

Roach held his breath and fired, the kick of the rifle nearly going back and making the scope hit him in the eye. He pulled the bolt back and looked through the scope again, seeing no glint anymore. Either the man had been hit on his mark, or Roach had missed and the man had hid or fled, hearing the simultaneous shot of Toad.

"Ghost, we're clear." Roach confirmed.

"Copy." Ghost replied.

Roach hefted up the rifle and slung it over his back, and began slowly moving to the center of the clearing.

Ghost, Toad, Archer, and Crown were already there by the time Roach reached the center, the four of them in a defensive circle looking in all four directions.

"Fuck. Ghost, Roach, you two are wounded. We need to get out of here as soon as possible, by helicopter if we can." Archer remarked as soon as Roach reached them.

"We couldn't raise Helo 4-1 earlier, but Crown wants to try again." Archer continued, motioning to Crown, who nodded and began messing with his mic, tuning in to the frequency the evac copters should be on.

"Helo 4-1, this is the remaining survivors. Callsigns dropped, we need evac ASAP." Crown spoke into his mic, his right hand reaching into his pocket to pull out a usp .45 and draw back the top, loading it.

"Copy, Helo 4-1 here. Got distracted earlier, fucking bogies trying to take control of us. Oscar Mike to secondary exfil, ETA two minutes." The reply made Crown grin, and he repeated it to the others, who smiled in turn, except for Ghost.

Nobody could tell what was behind that balaclava, a smile, frown, laughing face or tears, Ghost was truly emotionless with that face mask.

Two minutes later, two transport helicopters appeared in the sky, lowering towards them.

"When they touch down, we don't argue, just pile in whichever one is closer. The noise is going to bring Shepherd's men out here, and we don't need to die now, not after surviving this long." Ghost ordered, looking up at the helicopters descending towards them.

"GO!" Ghost yelled as soon as the nearest one was close enough to grab the bottom.

Archer stood under the copter and held out his hands to boost everyone up.

Crown was boosted first, followed by Archer, who in turn pulled up Crown, leaving Ghost and Roach to boost each other up.

"Up you go, Roach." Ghost held out his hands and Roach stepped onto them. Boosted up by Ghost, he grasped the edge of the helicopter and pulled himself in, and turned to grab Ghost.

Ghost grasped his hand and pulled himself into the helicopter next to Roach.

The helicopter began to take of, the second one already hovering above them.

The helicopter suddenly spun wildly, still moving upwards. A streak of smoke could be seen on the other side, followed by a closer one.

"Shit!" Roach yelled, stumbling backwards and out of the helicopter, just able to grasp the edge and keep himself from falling back to capture and eventual death.

"Roach!" Ghost yelled, Archer and him sliding over to the edge to try and grasp his hands and pull him in.

This reminded Roach of the time he, Mactavish, Ghost, and Rocket had been in a favela, and he'd failed to make a jump across a gap to another building, causing him to tumble to the ground and run from a mob of hostiles towards Nikolai's helicopter.

Except that time he'd been hanging from a ladder, and he'd had to jump to it from a ledge. This time, however, he'd been knocked out and this meant even worse than falling into those men from the favela.

"Helo 4-1, if you continue to help these outlawed individuals in their escape, we will be forced to shoot you down." Roach heard the voice from the radio Ghost had decided to strap to his chest instead of his pocket.

"Like hell you will, bitches!" The pilot replied back. He knew who the enemy was here, he'd nearly been killed himself just for sticking to the plan and waiting for the team to exfil, and this had happened.

As the helicotper stabilized and continued to rise, Roach desperately tried to grab either Ghost or Archer's hand with his free one.

"Roach! Come on, you can't die now!" Ghost yelled at him, giving Roach the strength enough to grasp his hand, and then Archer's as they pulled him in.

"Ah, damn. Gonna have bruises tomorrow." Roach mumbled once inside, rubbing his arms. He'd been trained in the SAS, and that had actually made him feel as if his arms would be ripped from his sockets.

"You know, Roach, that's the second time your as has had to be saved in a helicopter." Ghost was referring to the favela that had flashed through Roach's mind earlier.

Roach grinned, and assumed Ghost was grinning too, and held out his hand.

Ghost took it and shook it, nearly bringing the man into a hug but resisted the urge. He didn't feel like hugging now, and he needed to get this bullet out of him.

"When we get somewhere safe and this bullet gets out of me, I'm just gonna have a nice smoke." Ghost remarked.

"I wonder if this happened to Mactavish as well." Roach speculated. It probably had, and he was capable of taking care of himself, but he was still worried. Shepherd was a formidable man, and Mactavish would need all the strength he had to escape this.

"I wouldn't worry." Ghost replied, looking over at Archer and the other two.

They were silent, their eyes changed. Before this, they'd been talkative outside of operations, but now they looked gaunt, as if they'd seen enough to last a life time.

Betrayal could do that to you, especially if you have to end up killing some of the men you'd fought with before.

"They'll be fine, Roach." Ghost appeared to have read his mind and set him at ease. It happened to all of them, and they either got over it or remained silent most of the time, not inputting on the most basic of ideas and plans.

"I hope so... Shepherd and Makarov may be against each other, but we're still a target to him, and we're more of a threat because we've escaped him..." Roach replied.

"We'll kill that bastard if we have to die doing it." Ghost replied, looking out of the side of the helicopter.

No matter where Shepherd hid, he and Roach would find him and pay him back for this. He really would die if he made sure of it.

"Roach... Where do we head next?" Ghost asked.

"We need to find Mactavish at the least, he'll be with Nikolai for sure. That Russian's always there to bail at least one of us out of a tight spot." Roach replied.

"And they're in a boneyard... in Afghan, correct?" Ghost asked, already knowing the answer.

"I feel bad for him, trapped between Makarov and Shepherd's men. He'll survive though, if I know Mactavish..." Roach replied, leaning back against one of the seats I the helicopter.

Maybe things would have gone better if they'd stayed together. Now they had no idea if Mactavish was alive, and they themselves had been shot and nearly burned to death.

"Well, you sure aren't a ghost anymore, Ghost..." Roach remarked. The balaclava would be known to all of Shepherd's forces for sure now, and they'd either hate it, fear it, want to kill it, or all three.

They truly were on their own now. The only ones they could count on were each other, Archer, Crown, Toad, Helo, Mactavish, Price, and Nikolai. They truly were in this together now.


	2. Finding Soap and MacTavish

_Undisclosed safe house_

_Presumably somewhere in Russia_

_One day after the events of the Estate_

_Lt. Simon "Ghost" Riley_

"Well, that's just great..." I remarked, throwing the piece of paper into the nearby fireplace before staring into it for a few seconds.

"What?" Archer asked. He was sitting in the corner, cleaning his rifle, his ghillie suit in storage for the moment

Without the ghillie suit, Archer wore standard clothes and vest of the Task Force, except in green instead of blue like him. The man's head was shaved clean, and he was generally smiling despite the situation.

"This letter is useless. It's just another casualty report of the Estate, this time without our names." I replied, picking up my cigarette out of the ashtray next to me. It was already filled with cigarettes from either me or Helo, who also smoked, and this one was surely fill it up enough that we'd have to empty it soon.

"Well, that's not new. It took them two days to realize we hadn't died, right? That just means they're slower than we thought." Archer replied.

"It also means that they'll be labeling us as outlaws soon, just like Soap and Price." I'd reverted to calling MacTavish Soap again.

"At least we know they're alive." Roach interrupted. He'd been sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, staring at a picture of I didn't know what.

"But for how long?" I asked. Those two could handle themselves, but they were out there alone. Given, they were with Nikolai, but that was all they had at the moment.

"If I know MacTavish, He'll find a way." Roach commented, standing up and pocketing the photo. I still wondered what it was, but I didn't ask.

Blowing smoke, I turned to Roach and Archer, and asked, "So, what's the plan now? Shepherd tried to kill us, Makarov is probably where Tavish went, and we have no leads to anywhere else."

"That boneyard... What did they say about it? Shepherd and Makarov's forces would be fighting each other and they would slip in during the fight?" Roach was on to something.

"That was a day ago, Roach. That place is probably rubble by now, or at least littered with bodies." Archer answered, shaking his head.

"It's the only lead we've got, and what are we supposed to do? Sit here while MacTavish and Price end this by themselves? Hell, as far as they know, we're dead..." Roach replied. I saw his point. We were sitting here deciding what to do, and Price and Soap were probably with Nikolai, about to kill Makarov or Shepherd.

"If you think that's our only option, they why the hell not? I'll get Crown and Toad, we'll go in half an hour." Archer ended it right there, standing up and walking out of the room.

"This will lead to nothing, you know. Those two are already gone from there, hell they may be killing Makarov now." I said to Roach.

"Maybe, but would you rather not do shit and speculate on what would have happened if we didn't go?" Roach answered.

"The only thing we can do now is go there..." I replied.

"The only easy day truly was yesterday, wasn't it?" Roach asked.

"Got that right..." I replied, blowing smoke towards him and flicking the cigarette into the ashtray.

_Boneyard_

_1 Hour later. 1404/2:04 P.M._

_Lt. Simon "Ghost" Riley_

_Search for Price and Soap_

"Fuck... This really was a massacre." Toad commented.

I, Roach, Toad, Crown, and Archer had rappelled down from the helicopter and down into the boneyard, where we'd found loads of bodies waiting for us from both sides, not the garb of Price or Soap.

"At least those two aren't anywhere in it..." Roach commented, moving forward slowly.

For all we knew, there were clean-up teams sweeping the area. I'd seen the use of Juggernaut armor in some places, mainly the way a man I'd stepped on was wearing it, an M60 underneath him with a Thumper on his back.

"Juggernaut armor? How do we tell which side has this? I've never seen Shepherd of Makarov use them..." Crown commented, checking the armor.

"Forget it, we're here for Soap and Price..." I said, moving forward to catch up to Roach.

We continued in that line for a while, Roach and I in front, Crown in the middle, Toad and Archer on rear security.

I was carrying an M4A1 with a red dot sight for no particular reason. I'd assumed we'd meet minimal hostility and just grabbed the nearest weapon.

"Halt." I suddenly said.

"See the wire too?" Roach asked. I nodded and slowly moved over to it.

"Damn, it's motion controlled, have to blow it or go around." I said. The wire came with sensors above and below it as well, so we couldn't go over or under it.

I moved back and shot it, covering my face as dirt blew up at Roach and me.

"Clear, let's go." Roach said, moving forward again.

In a few minutes, we reached an an airstrip of some kind, where it looked like it had been sued recently.

"Toad, Crown, check the left side, Roach go right, Archer and I will continue down the strip." I ordered, watching the men follow the orders.

"Ghost, I've got more bodies. Confirm 5 K.I.A. All Shepherd's men." Roach spoke into my headset.

"I've got blood, broken glass too. Looks to be from a vehicle, as there are no windows here. Possibly a jeep." Archer suddenly said.

On the ground in front of him was a patch of blood with broken glass in and around it.

"Why the hell would they go down the runway to escape? Unless..." I left the thought unfinished. It could have been retreating forces of Shepherd or Makarov, but it could also have been Soap and Price, one of them hitting glass on a jeep somehow.

"Helo, this is ground team, we're heading back to extract." I said into my headset.

"Helo confirms, ground team extracting. Head to exfil Bravo, exfil Alpha is overrun and they look to be heading your way." Helo's voice entered my ears, and I cursed under my breath.

"Must be a clean up team, how fast are they moving?" I needed to know, the more time we had, the better.

"Looks like an ETA of about thirty seconds, a group of fifteen on thermal sensors. My ETA is about fifteen seconds, so set up a perimeter before they get there." Helo cut off, leaving us to set up the perimeter quickly.

"Roach, Crown, Toad, exfil point Bravo, fifteen plus hostiles inbound!" I yelled, getting up and sprinting over to the end of the strip, Archer just behind me.

With six seconds to spare form Helo arrving, we were in a defensive circle, Me in front, Archer to my left, Toad on my right, Roach standing behind my left, Crown ready to boost men in.

"Go, go, go!" I yelled as Helo arrived, and Crown cupped his hands to boost Roach in.

"Toad, Archer, go." I said, and Crown boosted them up in that order.

"Incoming!" Roach yelled, followed by the sound of a flashbang going off and my hearing leaving me, making me helpless for a few moments.

"Go!" Crown yelled, his hands still held out for me to step up into the helicopter with.

I did so, and turned to pull him up, grasping his right hand as a man came up behind him, holding a deadly grip on Crown's throat as we began ascending.

"Get off him, you bastard!" I reached down to pull out my usp .45 with my left hand, as Crown's hand started slipping.

"Let go of him!" I yelled again, this time firing the usp point blank into the assailant's arm, causing him to cry and and loosen his grip enough for Crown to breathe.

"Fucker!" He exclaimed, his left hand letting go of the bottom of the helicopter to pull out his knife and plunge it into the man's side, letting go of the hilt as the man's grip slipped even more.

The assailant was now barely holding onto Crown's foot as Crown continued slipping out of my hand, the fall now enough to kill him.

"Sayonara, bitch." Roach spoke suddenly, a bullet entering the man who was about to fall anyway.

"Crown, you okay?" I asked, pulling him into the helicopter.

"Give me a few minutes and I'll let you know..." He gasped out, sitting in one of the helicopter's seats.

_Safehouse_

_Half an hour later_

_Lt. Simon "Ghost" Riley_

"That was a dead end..." I commented when we were back in the safehouse.

"Not to mention we nearly lost Crown..." Toad said solemnly, blowing smoke. He was a smoker like me, but didn't smoke as much. He only did in times of distress, or so he told me.

"It may not have been a total loss." Roach said suddenly, producing a map, a pair of dogtags, and a radio recording.

"Got it off one of the dead bodies." He explained.

Toad, Roach, and I looked at the map and the dogtags which belonged to a H. Davis. The recording was from him as well, and was mostly garbled with the only words understandable being, Afghanistan, desert, and safehouse.

"That's where we'll find Shepherd... Or someone who knows where he is." Roach said at the end of the recording, pointing on the map to an area circled in red, with unreadable words underneath it.

"What kind of idiot circles the location on a map?" Toad asked.

"One that works to our advantage." Roach replied, folding the map up.

"We've got to go soon, otherwise our window will close and they'll realize we've gotten our hands on something." I said, stubbing my cigarette in the ashtray and moving to the door.

"Be ready in ten minutes, we can end this thing with Shepherd now." I said.

_Afghanistan_

_Thirty-seven minutes later._

_Lt. Simon "Ghost" Riley_

"Holy shit..." Roach muttered.

The thing he was muttering about was the boat chase going on on the river that led to a waterfall next to us, with two men in the one near the back, they appeared to be chasing the first boat, which was getting dangerously close to the waterfall.

"They're going over..." Archer muttered. He'd aimed through his scope attempting to get a line of sight of any of the men, but the helicopter's and the boats' movement made it nearly impossible to stay steady.

_John "Soap" MacTavish_

_Same time_

"Go back! Go back!" Price yelled, trying to help me turn the boat as we tried to prevent falling down the waterfall. It didn't work.

In the two seconds chance I got to think before blacking out, I thought that this was ironic. We'd survived a variety of places, people, operations, and bullets, and now we were going to die from a waterfall so close to our goal.

When I came to a few moments later on sand, the boat ruined next to me to my left, Shepherd's boat nowhere to be seen.

I managed to stumble forward after getting up, finding the ruined helicopter that we'd shot down earlier, one survivor stumbling around like me. I left him to die by himself, no use dirtying my knife with someone who would die soon anyway.

I reached a rusted out car and stopped to catch my breath, and then Shepherd came out of nowhere and punched me, knocking me to the ground and proceeding to punch me as I lay there, my knife in my stomach now.

"Get off of him!" Price's voice came into my ears right before he tackled Shepherd, the two oft hem fighting it out while I watched in a daze, trying to grasp the knife and pull it out.

_Lt. Simon "Ghost" Riley_

_Same time_

"Kill him, Archer!" Roach yelled, barely able to keep his finger off of his own trigger while cheering for Archer to pull the trigger.

"Shit... I can't hit them like this, we'd be better off to go up and beat the shit out of him with Price..." Archer muttered, dropping his view.

We were still in the helicopter, hovering a little bit above and to the left of the fight, which it appeared Shepherd was winning.

"Rappel, go!" I yelled, grabbing the rappelling rope as the hatch covering it opened. I hooked it to my belt and slid down, unhooking it as soon as I touched the ground.

"Shepherd, your time has come!" Roach yelled, sprinting towards the enemy who'd tried to burn us to death.

_Captain John Price_

_Same time_

"Shepherd!" Was all that I heard as Shepherd continually punched my face, causing bruises, cuts, and blood to come out.

"Your time has come!" Who was that? It sounded familiar, but it couldn't be who I thought it was. Those two had been killed by Shepherd, their bodies burned, just as they finished their operation.

Shepherd was suddenly off of me, and I was looking over at Soap, who had a man crouched over him, helping him pull the knife from his body.

"Shepherd, you asshole! You bastard! You betrayed us and tried to have us burned!" It was who I thought it was. Roach was crouched over Shepherd, beating the shit out of him while Ghost stood nearby with an M4A1 aimed at his head.

"Ghost...?" I managed to cough out, attempting to reach towards him.

"Price. It's alright, you're not dreaming." That wasn't Ghost's voice. I turned my head the other way, and saw a man with an Intervention sniper rifle crouched next to me, trying to help me sit up.

"Soap..." I mumbled.

"Soap's going to be fine, but we need to go, or he may bleed out because of that knife. You've got to get up, Price!" The man said urgently, grabbing my hand and pulling me up.

He supported me, helping me stumble over to a nearby hovering helicopter, a smaller one that looked to be Nikolai's nearby.

I then heard a gunshot from the direction of the others, followed by a single word, "Bitch."

_Lt Simon "Ghost" Riley_

_Forty-five minutes later_

"Get me your most trusted man!" Price yelled. Soap was bleeding out on the table, Roach looking out of a nearly destroyed window as forces came towards us, firing at the windows.

"Fuck, to think we came here on Nikolai's suggestion..." I muttered, looking down the hallway. It was out only way out of here, and I wasn't going to let it get taken.

"This is going to be a long day..." I muttered again, as a man stumbled through and injected a liquid into Soap, making him groan in pain and then go limp, not groaning or clutching his wound anymore.

"Alright, let's go!" Price yelled, moving towards the hallway.

So now we have to save Soap. I'm up for it, Roach is still with us, Crown and Toad are with Helo in the event we need support, and Archer's on roof security, he'll be sniping as we go.

God, I could use a smoke right now and I bet Price could too.


End file.
